Yikes! Luckily this setup was just for the photos, I didn’t actually tow like this as the Volvo was needed for shopping duties 
I now have the smaller front wheels at either side of the bigger rears so the strap over the top touches all four of them properly.
I have a secondary strap which I’ll thread through the spokes, and also need to do something better with the trailer spare 
Definatley do something through the spokes!
Definitley don’t look at how I spell though!
Nobody is judging.
I have to check definotely every time I use it
Interested to know what you thought of the V6 Exige you had a drive in at the start of this thread….you semi insinuate it’s something you might end up in
It was only a couple of laps, so really unfair to fully judge the V6 platform on.
I made notes immediately afterwards, because I know how quickly first impressions can fade but my main points were:
Then the negatives or “underwhelming” features
The big test was jumping back into my S2 after lunch, it just felt… alive.
V6 felt like somewhat of an inevitability for me, just natural progression through the brand but for now I wanted to go the other way and experience something at the lighter end of the scale. I may end up in a V6 one day, but to be honest the way I currently feel - my next “roofed” track car feels more likely to have a Porsche badge on it.
Interesting to hear. Notice the weight more?
Did you have a drive of Chris’s Honda Elise? Thought the P word might spring up too 
I honestly didn’t notice the weight in its own right, but I’m sure with a few more laps and confidence in the car it would become apparent.
I re-read my post and it looks very critical of the V6 platform which wasn’t the intention. It was a fantastic car, oozed theatre and actually felt like it had a decent amount of build quality. It just wasn’t the right time for me I don’t think.
I’ve not had the opportunity to drive Chris’ car yet, I’m actually very reluctant to take keys when offered but the V6 was a different story because I was neck deep in car purchase negotiations at the time! It was too good of an opportunity to turn down. I’ve passengered in Chris’ a couple of times though and it’s fantastic, perfect amount of power for the weight (IMO) for what’s still ultimately an under stressed engine. I’ve been in/around supercharged Honda cars which have their fair share of issues for track work, but a lightly breathed on NA in a <750kg car is amazing.
I had a few weeks before the next scheduled outing in the 2-Eleven (Anglesey trackday) so I spent a bit of time enjoying the dry roads and just making sure nothing was niggling on the car.
I developed a pretty nasty rattle at low speeds, it ended up being a novelty multi tool (size and shape of a credit card) that had slipped under the passenger seat. Easily sorted.
When hunting for this rattle I put the car up on the ramp and gave everything a good wobble. Unfortunately the OSR wheel reciprocated the wobble, quite badly too. I did all the basic checks, toe links and balljoints checked out but the wheel would move either from 9-3 or 12-6 enough to make the disc clack around between the pads. Hmmm, must be wheel bearing 
With the wheel and brake off there was no detectable play, but I trusted in my troubleshooting instincts and pushed forward finding that the wheel bearing was not an original SKF part and was some sort of knock off pattern part. I’ve grown to be extremely weary of non OE bearings over the years, after them costing me time and effort with clutches and this would be more conviction.
I’ve removed, replaced and handled more of these Lotus bearings than I care to count now - but it does mean I could spot this as a knock off from a mile away.
I initially planned to replace just this one, but I put 2 and 2 together to get 5 and assumed that all four would be knock off parts. That combined with a pretty impressive deal from the SKF UK Ebay shop for a multibuy discount meant that I got all four bearings for a little over half the usual price.
As I later found, the other three corners were all legit SKF and showed no signs of wear… so probably money wasted there. Oh well.
It did mean I got four shiny new bearings to rust proof.
This did give me an opportunity to really inspect the state of my suspension. Any readers of my previous threads will know the Lotus bolt-on bits do suffer a bit from normal use, and don’t weather well at all. This usually leads to me doing a rather enjoyable refurb project but no urgent need for that on the 2-11 as it’s pretty tidy as is.
I can only assume that it has been done recently. It looks like the rear wishbones have been replaced with new ones quite recently as they have a very convincing factory finish. The front stuff which is bespoke to the 2-11 and hence rarer, seems to have been painted instead.
I’d mentioned on a previous post that my rear discs are close to end of life, well they’re more close than I previously realised so I stuck some new ones in whilst I was at it.
As usual, everything went well till the final corner. The front calipers had been painted quite recently… a finish that has not stood up well to track use at all, and worse than that it had been blobbed over some of the bolt heads a bit. This lead to a stuck bolt, and the eventual pain to drill it out.
After a few visits with a drill and a fresh dose of patience, I eventually got the caliper off. Not without a bit of collateral damage to the caliper but hopefully just aesthetic. I’ll look to tidy it up or replace it when I get a decent donor.
Luckily the stub of the bolt came out by hand after all of the abuse it took from the drilling and several attempts with left handed drill bits etc.
With all four bearings finally replaced, it was one last inspection under which I found a couple more issues…
Handbrake cable fouling on the OSR wheel. Had this before with my Elise, just one of those things I think. They’re inexpensive to replace but for now it’s just lubed and taped up to stop it rusting.
The OSF track rod end nut wasn’t holding any torque, it was just spinning on the shaft (the shaft was stationary). Luckily it whizzed off, and I found that a nut with the wrong thread had been forced on and subsequently stripped.
I can sort of see how it could have happened. The thread is M10, which can come in a pitch of 1.5, 1.25 or 1.0. I talked to two people and got two answers about what pitch it should be, and I had two old track rod ends in “stock” (I’m a hoarder) and both had different pitches, so it’s clear that the supply chain to the Lotus community has been varied over the years. Still, annoying - and left me scratching around trying to find a high tensile M10x1.0 nyloc nut in the days before the trackday.
I did think about just swapping the TRE’s for the ones I had, but they’re different lengths too which make the whole “count the turns” thing fraught with danger and I really don’t have time for an emergency geo before the trackday now!
Still, it’s Anglesey in October… so I’ll get plenty of garage time at the circuit I’m sure.
You can put a price on the peace of mind it appears.
Take a canoe
Anglesey Update.
Another jewel in the crown of my trackday calendar is the annual trip with Lotus on Track to Anglesey. I absolutely love this part of the World, views in all directions and a cracking circuit to boot. I’ve had quite bad rain each time I’ve been and a break down with 14 hour recovery… so it hasn’t been the kindest circuit to me… but that has got to change eventually.
The main excitement was that this would be my first proper long distance trackday with a trailer, so it would be a good towing adventure and I was looking forward to making the trip in relative comfort. Sorry if this is a bit boring, but I was giddy to play truckers.
On the day before, I set to getting the car loaded up. It took ages, constantly faffing with the straps, alignment of the car and luggage loads. A bit stressful tbh, but finally she was ready to go.
I’ve had lots of good feedback and advice on trailer loading/towing and the car facing forwards vs backwards continues to be a regular feature… but I just found that with the tyre rack loaded up and some spare fuel in the nose of the trailer that my nose weights were right on target with the car in forwards and pushed as far forwards as it would go. With the car on backwards I’d need to park it right at the very back, and not be able to use the tyre rack as the spoiler won’t go under it. It towed an absolute treat though, so I’m happy with my setup.
Had to drop our daughter off at the in-laws en route which meant a meeting in an out of town garden centre to avoid any risk of 3-point turns down a cul-de-sac, but with our precious cargo dropped off it was time to hit the road properly.
Trip went without any drama, stopped off at Chester for a brew and a photograph.
Volvo was managing a respectable 27mpg once onto the motorways. The D5 engine handed it fine, I needed to step in with manual downshifts occasionally when pulling away up hills but no stinking of clutch and the brakes held up fine to the stopping I had to do.
We arrived in Holyhead to our planned out trailer-friendly parking feeling rather chuffed. The 2-11 was even still where I left it, result.
Onto the morning of the trackday, it had heaved it down over night and so the track was very wet. We had the threat of late morning heavy showers, then the hope of bright sun and a drying track in the afternoon.
I got the car unloaded after the sighting laps to keep it dry and comfortable for as long as possible. John and Dave from SeriouslyLotus were attending as support, and they could smell the vulnerability of a first time trailer owner a mile off so were great help in getting me safely unloaded. Cheers Gents.
I had the AD08RS road tyres fitted because I was expecting a wet start. I could always swap to AR1 later.
Though the circuit was very wet, it wasn’t actually raining so I got out for a gentle session. Early impression was lots of front end grip but a rear not willing to turn in at anything more than a snails pace. Persisting I eventually got a bit of heat into the rear tyres and got brave enough to carry a bit more throttle in to settle the rear… then I started having fun.
I had regular snatchy lockups of the rear brakes, but I could see from the wear pattern on the discs that I was still bedding in the pads to the shape of the new discs. This improved throughout the day and was a non-issue later on.
By late morning the heavier rain came, so I hid in the garage and let the roofies have the place to themselves for a bit. I had my waterproof onesie but I wanted to try and keep the passenger seat dry for the comfort of my passengers later in the day.
Towards the end of lunch, the sun came out and it was a steadily drying track for the rest of the day. It never got completely dry, and particularly Church corner remained a bit scary for the remainder.
I decided to keep on the AD08 tyres and try to push the car on a bit in the lower speed corners. Get a feel for the balance of the 2-11 and the effect of twiddling with the adjustable traction control.
With the TC fully ‘on’, I found it very capable in a straight line but any stab of throttle in turns would still flick you sideways. The intervention would then kick in and prevent you from holding a slide and get you on your way.
With a steadily rising level of confidence I was picking up my entry speeds enough to force the car into an armful of understeer. This is my happy place in a 111 based car, it’s something you can modulate quite easily and increase or decrease your turn radius with gentle tweaks to the throttle. Once you’re really happy, you can have a quick lift-off followed by a sharp stab of throttle to really bring the back around.
I tweaked the TC down to about 75% of its intervention. The advertised slip range of the TC system is 0-12%, not sure if it’s linear or not as you turn the dial but I guess we can assume around 3% slip.
This allowed me to turn in aggressively, lift off, stab the throttle and then hold a bit of a slide through the tight hairpins. It was incredible fun. You could punch the throttle and just pin it and the car would gather itself back up and have you on your way. I over cooked it just once and ended up in an angle that I couldn’t catch, I think if I had the knob set to allow more slip I could probably have caught it.
I had a torsen LSD in my Exige and really enjoyed exploring that at an icy Bedford almost a year ago. I was expecting the 211 on the open differential to be a bit harder to control… but I was wrong I think. I’m still convinced the LSD was an upgrade on the Exige, and would have been on my NA Elise before it. Both of those cars would readily spin up their inside wheel but I’ve never had that on the 211 suggesting that either the suspension geometry is just better at keeping that inside rear in play… or it has a diff in it already. They were available as options from Lotus so I can’t rule it out.
I spent the rest of the afternoon just pushing my luck and attempting to show off to a couple of passengers. Everyone seemed to love it, except my missus - who gave me the signal (punch to the thigh) and wanted to go back into the pits pretty sharpish.
For the first time ever, I was rushing to get back out BEFORE the tarmac dried anymore. I wanted to make the most of the conditions and had no desire to stick the AR1’s on at all. Fantastic fun.
I picked up a black flag late afternoon, figuring I’d pushed my luck a bit with tyre squeeling I sheepishly limped back into the pits to find my rear plate was hanging off… Doh! Whipped it off completely and was back out sharpish.
On the final session I attempted to put together some reasonable laps, pretty ingrained with bad habits at this point they weren’t particularly tidy - and my day came to an early end (7mins before chequered flag) because my brake pedal was going straight to the floor. Hoping I just boiled the fluid, but investigation to follow.
From coming into the pits, to being loaded and ready to go I took about 25mins. Pretty happy with that, I had visions of being at the circuit till 8pm cocking about in the dark.
The tow home would be broken in two, stopping with a friend in Cheshire to break it up a bit. I had my only real bit of towing drama about 5mins from his house. A minibus was parked up in the slow lane of a dual carraigeway… once we got within a 100 feet or so of it, it literally exploded. Full on Hollywood fireball. Guy in front of me anchored on, I had to swerve into the fast lane to avoid rear ending him and I ended up the ‘lead car’ in what was to become a huge queue on the A54.
We later learned nobody was hurt, so don’t feel too bad for taking photographs now… Looks like the driver had bailed out sometime earlier when smelling/seeing smoke and was well clear when it eventually went pop just in time for my arrival.
As the fire got worse, the trees at the side of the road all went up and it started coming towards us a bit. With help from my fellow traffic-jammers I reversed the trailer back into the slow lane and got a bit more distance between us.
For around 20mins it continued to explode, fuel tanks going, tyres popping, glass smashing. It was mental.
Got to see these efficient bastards with front row seats though, no messing about. Well played.
All in all, a bloody good weekend. Trailer was ace, Volvo was ace, Anglesey was ace and the 2-Eleven was just next level. It’s going to be a long winter I fear.
Great report! Yet another good read.
Great report. Hope the brakes are like you say - just fluid
Excellent to hear how much fun you had in the damp conditions. I can quite enjoy damp conditions as long as it’s a wide track with plenty of run off.
What a dramatic end to the day!
Thanks all, still buzzing tbh. Great day.
I’ve got the car on the lift and there’s no obvious brake issues. I bought a cheap fluid analyser and dipped it onto the reservoir and it suggests somewhere between 2 and 3% water content. 3% is the threshold for “danger” according to the tool.
I dipped it into some fresh fluid in the bottle and it read 0% so that’s about as much calibration as I can do!
I’ll get it flushed out and replaced. Hopefully that’s that. Plan to SORN the car in a couple of days so ideally need to test drive it before then.
Efficient bastards….
Stop getting tools that I now need to buy!
List of tools to copy Fonzey
It was £8. Start with #3
Need a house/garage to put them in first.
Its a long old story …
Had a bit of time to play with the brakes, this is the cheap fluid tester I bought.
I tested the fluid from each caliper and from the reservoir and all came in at the <2% or <3% range.
No idea how accurate this is, but fresh fluid measured 0% so let’s assume it’s worthy of something!
Got my pressure bleeder setup, these are worth their weight in gold. Make solo bleeds a doddle, no leaks in several years and probably over a dozen bleeds and it just keeps working. Go Sealey.
The little access pod is irritatingly tight for the cap, makes it a bit awkward but not quite awkward enough to take the clam off…
When the clam is off, I’ll see if I can manipulate the reservoir position a bit - if it was angled a bit more towards the centre of the car this would have been much easier.
I had half a litre of fresh, but opened brake fluid so I started with that just to get the worst of the old stuff run through, starting with the clutch.
The fluid was pretty clean coming out which makes the invoice I have from April believable in which it had a fluid change. One of the caliper nipples was a mess though, it had already been rounded off a bit and it was rusted in pretty good.
There were no huge gobs of air at this point which was a little underwhelming. Up next was a fresh 1litre of ATE200 fluid.
With this, I removed my pads and clamped the pistons back into the calipers and bled in turn. This yielded a few blobs of air.
I went round the four corners (and clutch) a couple of times until the full litre of ATE had been used up. Pedal felt decent, so called it a day but I wanted at least one road drive before SORN on the 31st October.
The NYLOC monthly meet made for the perfect opportunity, wet roads but no rain meant I could whizz out, make sure all was well and then get it fuelled up and parked ready for SORN. It’s next outing would be straight into the trailer for Silverstone.
As a bonus, the NYLOC meet carpark had lots of colour coded leaves on the floor.
Brakes felt fine, definitely feeling a light reduction of bite on the colder roads but I’m sure they’ll come to life on track. Still enough to get your eyes bulging mind…
Car is also feeling seriously rapid in the colder air. Night and day difference to the summer.
So hopefully that’s that, Silverstone next.
Great update as always. The last picture is fantastic!
